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DISCOURSE, 



ON T H K 



MORAL, LEGAL AND DOMESTIC CONDITION 



OUK COLORED TOPULATION, 



P 11 E A C II V. Y) E E F O n K T II E 



VERMONT COLONIZATION SOCIETY, 



MON T P y L I E |{, OCT DISK It 17, 183: 



IJ Y J . K . CONY J:] USE, 

PastDr ufllio First (',)ii;;n'^';Ui(mal Cliiir.-I:, nurlin-loii, Vt. 



Y 

BURLINGTON: EDWARD SMITH 

{Successor to Chauncey Goodrich.) 

1832. 



•\^ 



Rev. J. K. CoNVEHsK. 

As a coiiiiiiitteo of tin; Veniioiit Coluiiizatioii Societ}', I am requested 
to present you tlieir very cordial tliatiks for your able and interesting 
discourse delivered last evening, and also to reejuest a copy of the same 
for publication. 

Very respectfully, yours, 

C. WRIGHT. 
Mo-NTPKi-iER, Oct. lS;h, 1832. 



Rev. C. Wright. 

In rejjlytoyour note of this morning, and incompliance with the request 
of the Colonization Society of Vermont, I send you herewith, a copy of 
the discourse presented last evening. If the Society think its publication 
will serve the cause, which it was intended to promote, it is clieerfully 
committed to their disjmsal. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

J. K. CONVERSE. 
Mo.NTPELiER, Oct. ]8th, 1832. 



F 11 1 ) .M 'J' II i: 1^' A' I V j: 11 s I -r v i- ii i: 



DISCOUHSE. 

^ 

And if thy brothnr, an Hebrew man or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee and serve theo six 
years, then in the seventh year thou shall let him go free from thee. 

And when thou sendest hira out free from thee, thou shall not let him go away empty ; 

Thou shall furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy wine-press ; 
of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed tliee, thou shall give unto him. 

And thou shall remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God 
redeemed thee ; therefore I command thee this thing to day. Dent. .xv. 12 — 15. 

These words contain an injunction from Jehovah to 
the Jewish nation soon after their emancipation from 
Egyptian bondage. They were designed to teach them 
lessons of humanity and kindness towards all men, and 
especially towards those who might be in a state of 
servitude or subordination among themselves. 

When the great Lawgiver of the Jews under the 
guidance of the Holy Spirit, was preparing his code for 
the government of the people, he gave to it one very 
remarkable feature, which provided that, at the end of 
every seven years, the debtor, the servant and all the 
oppressed should be set at liberty and allowed to go out 
free among their brethren. On the year of release, or 
at the season of the great national jubilee, the command 
in reference to all persons of this description was. Thou 
shall let the oppressed go free : and obedience to this 
command was enforced by one of the most striking and 
powerful of all arguments in the closing words of our 
text : For thou shall remember that thou wast a bondman 
in the land of Egypt and the Lord thy God redeerned 
thee. This was a direct and powerful appeal to their 
own feelings, — to their vivid recollection of their own 
recent sufferings under a most rigorous bondage. The 
Hebrews were to exercise compassion towards those 



who had been oppressed among them, not only because 
this was right in itself, but especially because God had 
exercised compassion towards them when in bondage 
and had delivered them out of it. 

According to the Jewish law, if a man for debt or 
crime or any other cause, were sold into bondage, he 
could not be retained in this condition more than six 
years. On the seventh year at the longest he could 
claim his freedom. And if the year of jubilee or of 
release occurred before the end of six years' service, on 
that year he was to receive his free discharge. And let 
it be especially observed that the servant or bondman 
thus set free, was not to be sent away empty. — The 
injunction in the text was designed to prevent this. Jlnd 
if thy brother, an Hcbreiv man or an Hebrcio woman, be 
sold unto thee and serve thee six years, then in the seventh 
year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou 
se7idest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go 
away empty : TJiou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy 
flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy wine press ; of 
that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee, thou 
shalt give unto him. And thou shalt remember that 
thou least a bondman in the land af Egypt and the Lord 
thy God redeemed thee. 

Again, in verses seventh and ninth of this chapter, 
this injunction is repeated in reference to all poor persons. 
If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren 
within any of thy gates, in thy land which the Lord thy 
God giveih thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart nor 
shut thine hand from thy poor brother : But thou shalt 
open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend 
him sufficient for his need, in that lohich he wanteth. 
Beware that there be not a thought in thy icicked heart, 
saying, the seventh year, the year of release, is at hand, 



and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou 
give him nought, and he cry unto the Lord against thee, 
and it be sin unto thee. 

Thus, the law not only required the Hebrews to 
emancipate those who were in bondage at an appointed 
time : It ak^q required them to furnish their emancipated 
servants with the means of beginning in the world for 
themselves. They were rightly supposed to have 
nothing of their own. They had received no wages for 
their service, and they must still be slaves or servants 
in every thing but the name, unless they were furnished 
from some source, with the means of getting into a 
condition in which they might be really free. 

Every one must see that the words which we have 
chosen as an appropriate introduction to the subject now 
before us, apply with peculiar force to the people of this 
land and to the circumstances of the age and country in 
which we live. Many of our ancestors were once 
oppressed in the land of their birth for the truth's sake, 
but God delivered them out of all their troubles and 
brought them to this Canaan of hberty and plenty and 
distinguished christian privileges. 

Again, at a subsequent period, our fathers were 
oppressed and threatened with an 'Egyptian bondage,' 
and again, the Lord redeemed them, and brought them 
out ' with a strong hand and an outstretched arm.' 

All who now hear me have been in bondage in the 
service of sin and satan ; but there are some, and I hope 
many, here, whom the Lord our God hath redeemed and 
brought into the glorious liberty of the so?is of God. 
May we not, then, ought we not to bring to the 
consideration of the subject now before us, the solemn 
recollection, that both we and our fathers have been 
bondmen in several important respects ; may w^e not 



also bring those grateful feelings which ought to be 
awakened by the assurance that the Lord our God has 
redeemed us from our bondage. 

So pertinent are the words of our text to our 
circumstances as a people, that they seem to have been 
uttered with prophetic view to the age and country in 
which we live. We as a christian nation, like the Jews 
of old, profess to receive Jehovah as our sovereign, and 
Jiis law as our rule of action. Like the Jews, Ave 
hold many of our poor brethren in a state of servitude 
and degradation. More than 2,000,000 are in this 
condition. They have been in this condition not merely 
seven years, but more than twice seven times seven 
years. The season of our nation's jubilee has just passed 
away. The outward demonstrations of gratitude and 
joy with which it was hailed, through every part of the 
land, have scarcely died upon the ear. To us then, on 
this occasion, the injunction of the text comes, clothed 
by the Spirit of God, in all its original authority. Let the 
oppressed go free, Isa. 58. 6. For Thou shalt remember 
that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt and the 
Lord thy God redeemed thee. 

The plans and proceedings of the American Colo- 
nization Society, whose cause we plead this evening, are 
all based upon the assumed fact, that we have among 
us a numerous population, who are not only deprived 
of personal liberty, but are sunk extremely low in 
ignorance and moral degradation ; and who, though they 
might be made freemen in name, can never be raised to 
the rank and privileges of freemen in this country. 

I do not intend on this occasion to enter into a 
discussion of the abstract right or injustice of slavery. 
On this point, among us, there is probably but one 
opinion. — Taking the system of slavery and our colored 



population just as we find them, it will be my object to 
show that the plan of colonization, is the best plan for 
improving the condition of our colored people, and for 
freeing our country from the evils and dangers of a 
mixed population. And that the strong motives to effort 
in this cause, may be seen and felt in all their force, 
we shall take a general view of the moral, legal and 
domestic condition of our colored population. The most 
lamentable effect of the system of slavery as it exists in 
this country, is the woful degradation of one sixth part of 
our population, or of more than 2,000,000 of human 
beings. Most of them are in bondage. They are 
connected by no natural tie, either to the soil on which 
they live, or with any other class of our population. 

I. / am to speak first of their moral condition. And 
my first remark here is, that the great majority of our 
colored people are sunk as low in ignorance and vice 
as we can conceive it possible for human beings to be, 
in the midst of civihzation and christian institutions. 
This fact is undeniable in respect to a large portion of 
them. They are as emphatically heathens as any that 
can be found on the continent of Asia. — This may seem 
a strong assertion ; and you are ready to ask, why is 
the African race among us sunk so low in the scale of 
being? — To this question there is an easy and ready 
answer. An obvious reason for the moral degradation 
of our colored population is, that they are placed, both 
by our laws and by pubhc sentiment, totally beyond the 
reach ot those great moral motives and stimulants 
which form the characters of white men and raise them 
to their respective grades of moral and intellectual 
dignity. What are the motives which form the characters 
of white men ? They are plainly such as these ; aspi- 
rations after wealth, ease, power, reputation, a share 



8 

in the common honors and privileges of society and 
future happiness. These are the objects which all 
really freemen place before them in idea, and for the 
attainment of which they do instinctively apply all their 
powers. But not one of these motives, (except the 
last) can be made effectually to reach and touch the 
springs of action in the slave, for the plain reason, that 
he can never hope to attain one of these objects, how- 
ever much he may desire it. The slave, for example, 
cannot expect wealth, because he labors, not for himself, 
but for another. The master treats him on the principle 
that when he is well fed and clothed he can want 
nothing more. This principle may apply very w^ ell to 
beasts of burden. But can you bring human nature 
down to this ? no, never ; you cannot bring the slave to 
this. He does desire more, and more he will have ; 
and acting on the instinctive principle that every man 
is justly entitled to the product ot his own limbs and 
labor, and regarding what his master claims as property, 
as the product of his limbs and labor, he therefore steals 
it. And as the property of all the masters in a given 
district is the product of all the slaves in that district, 
therefore all slaves have a right to steal from all masters. 
This mode of reasoning and practice, though all wrong, 
is perfectly natural to them in their condition. Hence 
it happens, that where no rehgious restraint interferes, 
to be a slave and to be a thief is much the same thing. 
And human nature under any other complexion, would 
exhibit the same features. 

Again. The colored man can have no moral motives 
in the hope of acquiring power, for whether he is a 
bondman or nominal freeman he knows very well that 
the exercise of his power can never rise higher than to 
a very little influence over his companions in degradation. 



9 

Again. The colored man, in this country, can derive no 
moral stimulants from the hope of gaining a reputation 
or establishing for himself a character, for he knows 
perfectly well, that the learning of a Plato, the piety of 
an Apostle and the refined manners of a Courtier, can 
never raise him to a level with the white man, or procure 
for him a place in the social privileges and public honors 
of his country. His exclusion from these depends not 
at all upon his talents, or his literary or moral qualities. It 
depends wholly upon the fact, that he is a colored man, a 
misfortune, alas, totally beyond the power of his control. — 
Such is the condition of every bondman. Those nominally 
free among us, are scarcely in a better condition. With 
all the cares, burdens and responsibilities of freemen 
they have none of its substantial benefits. All prospect 
of amalgamation with the whites is forever cut off. Their 
associations are, and, in our southern country must be, 
chiefly with slaves. They can have no political influence 
in our public counsels. The bar, the bench and the 
medical profession will forever be closed to them here 
by an impassable barrier. 

I ask then, since things are thus, how it can be 
otherwise, than that the colored race among us should 
be sunk to the lowest depths of civihzed ignorance and 
vice? Every principle of enterprise that can have an 
influence m elevating the character of a man, is swept 
away from them. They feel that they are devoted to 
worthlessness and ignorance. They bid farewell to 
hope. Their grand principle of action is, 'let us eat 
and drink, for to-morrow we die.' They freely give up 
to every unholy passion and lust, and thus furnish, in 
their debasement, a living commentary on the declaration 
of the prophet that the heart is deceitful above all 
things and desperately wicked. 
2 



10 

There is, then, as we have seen, no moral motive 
that can be made eifectually to touch the springs of 
intellectual and moral action in our colored population, 
except that which is drawn from religion ; a motive, 
which assures them that they wall be rewarded or 
punished in a future Ufe according to the character they 
form here. And now, we ask, what has been done to 
bring them under the influence of this motive 1 Or, in 
other words, to instruct them in the principles and duties 
of the christian religion ? Truth must answer, almost 
nothing, has been done. — The laws of the south strictly 
forbid their being taught to read ; and they make no 
provision for their being orally instructed. Ministers 
sometimes preach to them, under peculiar and severe 
restrictions of the law. But with all that has yet been 
done, the majority are emphatically heathens, and, what 
is very strange, heathens in the midst of a land of 
sabbaths and of churches, of bibles and of christians. 
Yes, through some strange defect of pubhc sentiment, 
we, as a visible church and a christian nation, have 
looked on year after year ; — we have seen from one to 
two millions of immortal beings, of the same nature with 
ourselves, endued with the same powers of mind, and 
with as quick sensibilities of heart, destined to the 
same judgment bar ; to be undistinguished sharers with 
us in the same eternity, abandoned to palpable ignorance 
and fanaticism, wdth 30,000 of them yearly passing into 
eternity, without any hearty efforts or systematic plans 
for instructing them in the religion of Jesus Christ. For 
such neglect, there must be guilt somewhere. 

I w^ould not be understood to say that the slaves of the 
south never have the opportunity of hearing the gospel, 
or that all pious masters neglect their religious instruction, 
for such would not be the truth. The slaves sometimes 



11 

have the opportunity of hearing the gospel, but they 
have no disposition to improve it. They have no respect 
for the sabbath : As they are confined to hard labor 
during six days of the week, they claim the right to 
spend the sabbath as they please : Accordingly, they 
usually do spend it in visiting, hunting, in riot and 
drunkenness, in carrying to market their stolen property 
or the little produce which they have honestly cultivated 
around their mud-wahed cabins. 

Pious masters, (with some honorable exceptions) are 
criminally negligent of giving religious instruction to their 
slaves. It has long been neglected and masters have 
fallen into a deep sleep in reference to this matter. 
They can and do instruct their own children and perhaps 
their * house servants'; while those called afield han(ls\ 
live, and labor and die, without being once told by their 
pious masters that Jesus Christ died to save sinners. 
Indeed this is a most ungrateful task to the master. He 
is so much accustomed to speak to them in the rough 
tone of sternness and authority, that it requires an effort 
most revoking to his feelings, to assume the kind and 
gende accents of a christian teacher. 

Intemperance and theft are vices to which the colored 
population of the south are very much addicted ; so much 
so, that it is proverbially said that they are constitutionally 
inclined to these vices. But the undoubted fact is, that 
they are no more predisposed to them constitutionally, 
than white men would be in the same circumstances. 

Finally, in respect to the moral condition of slaves, it 
should be remembered, that there are no laws regulating 
marriage among them. An apology for a marriage 
ceremony is sometimes attempted among the higher 
order of ' house servants ;' — is celebrated, perhaps, by 
a minister of the gospel or a civil magistrate ; but even 



12 

then, it has no legal validity, and may continue only so 
long as shall suit the caprice of the parties or the 
convenience of the master. The law, in this, as in 
other things, respects them only as property. The 
effects of such a state of things, on their moral character, 
need not be described to this assembly. 

I have thus far spoken chiefly, of the southern slave, 
but the moral condition of the great body of the free 
colored people, throughout the union, is but litde better. 
They, too, are placed, by their color and by pubhc 
sentiment, totally beyond the reach of those great moral 
motives which form the characters of other men ; and 
for proof of their general degradation, I need only state 
the fact from the reports of the American Prison 
Disciphne Society, that the penitentiaries of some of our 
free states, contain seven blacks to one white man, when 
the ratio of the two kinds of population is considered. — 
In Mass. only l-74th part of the population is colored, 
but l-6th part of the convicts are colored. Here then, 
we have one sixth part of the crimes and convicts out of 
l-74th part of the population. In Connecticut, l-34th 
part of the population is colored and l-3d part of 
the convicts. In New York, l~35th part of the 
population is colored but l-4th part of all the crime and 
convicts is from this 35th portion of the population. The 
proportion in Pennsylvania is the same. — In New Jersey, 
1-1 3th part of the population is colored and one third 
part of the convicts. According to this calculation, 
the colored population of our free states is seven fold 
more degraded than the whites. In Massachusetts, 
Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania, one fourth 
part of the money expended for the support of convicts 
and paupers, is expended on colored convicts and 
paupers. — These remarks and statistics are still more 



13 

applicable to the free blacks in the slave holding states. 
They are there placed midway between freedom and 
slavery. They feel neither the incentives and stimulants 
of the one, nor the wholesome restraints of the other ; and 
they are alike injurious by their conduct to every other 
class of society. They are not only sunk to the common 
level of the slave in moral degradation, but are often, far 
below him in poverty and wretchedness. — Though nom- 
inally freemen, they are in fact slaves, — slaves in public 
sentiment, and slaves to every vice that debases human 
nature ; for, what is freedom without the emancipation 
of the intellect. What is freedom, without the possible 
opportunity of developing and bringing into action those 
powers which a benevolent God has conferred upon us. 
It is a vanishing vapor ! It is a name without a meaning. — 
So much for the mora/ condition of our colored population. 

II. The legal condition of our colored popidatian. 
It is known to some present, that the African race, 
who are in bondage among us, are not governed by 
the same laws with the whites, but by a totally distinct 
code. Many of the laws insdtuted for slaves, w^ould 
appear rigorous and cruel in the extreme, to those 
unacquainted with the circumstances which called them 
forth. In Virginia, where the laws are as mild and 
those in bondage are as well treated as in any state in 
the union, the standard of capital punishment for the 
white man, is one thing, but that for the slave is quite a 
different thing. — No slave is sent to the penitentiary 
for any crime wdiatever ; and for the obvious reason, that 
if slaves were sent there for the same crimes wdth 
white men, acres of land and millions of dollars would 
scarcely furnish an establishment large enough to contain 
and support the multitudes that would flow into it.— Most 



14 

of the crimes punishable in white men hj penitentiary or 
fine, when committed by slaves, are punished with death. 
Thus, stealing or being accessary to the stealing of a 
horse, by the white man, is punishable by imprisonment 
or fine, the same crime by a slave, death. So the 
burning of outbuildings by a white man, imprisonment or 
fine, by a slave, death. So of a hundred other crimes, 
such as the breaking open a warehouse or store ; forgery 
of various kinds, the embezzling of public property or 
documents, subject the slave to death ; others, only to 
fine or imprisonment. 

Again, the deep moral degi'adation of the slaves is 
acknowledged and proclaimed to the world, by a law 
which declares that no testimony of a slave, or of any 
number of slaves, can be received in a court of justice or 
before a magistrate, against a white citizen. An army 
of slaves cannot convict, a white man of a capital crime 
committed before the eyes of them all ; though one, or 
two white men could convict an army of slaves of the 
same crime under hke circumstances. 

Agam, in most of the slave holding states, the laws 
strictly forbid masters to emancipate their slaves unless 
they remove them out of the limits of the state. And 
all servants thus emancipated, if found within the state 
twelve months after emancipation, may be taken up by 
any sheriff and sold again into hopeless bondage, unless 
they have obtained citizenship, in the mean time, by 
application to the legislature. These laws, rigorous and 
unrighteous as they may seem, w ere like, others already 
named, dictated by stern necessity. The southern 
states were driven to these measures in order to prevent 
the accumulation of an evil, already paralyzing their 
physical and moral energies and threatening them 
with destruction. And even now, under the rigorous 



15 

execution of these enactments, their free colored 
population is increasing four per. cent, faster than the 
whites. But there is one feature of these measures 
which cannot be defended from the charge of inhumanity 
and oppression. If these states are determined to drive 
these unhappy beings from their borders, after being 
enriched by their sweat and toil, they are bound by all 
that is honorable and sacred, to provide for them an 
assylum, or furnish them with the means of getting to 
one, already provided. Even the criminals of Great 
Britain, when compelled by sentence of the judge to 
leave their country, are treated with more humanity. 
They are taken up and transported at the public expense 
and in the public vessels, a distance of nearly 10,000 
miles, to the continent of New Holland. 

I will nodce one more of the slave laws of the south, 
and let that suffice to illustrate the legal condition of our 
colored population. I allude to the enactment which 
forbids the teaching of colored persons to read or 
write. In five of these United States, the first article 
of whose political creed is, that ' all men are born free 
and equal ;' not only slaves, but all colored persons, 
however good their character, are forbidden, under 
heavy penalty, to be taught to read or write. This 
surely is a measure which can not be defended from 
the imputadon of cruelty ! To hold the body in 
perpetual and hopeless bondage is hard enough ! but 
to bind the soul — the immortal spirit — created in God's 
own image, which Christ died to redeem; — to bind 
this, in chains of ignorance and eternal darkness, is 
indeed cruel ! and the maintaining in our country a 
system which demands such an expedient as a measure of 
safety, imposes a tremendous responsibility somewhere. 



16 

"Wo for those who trample o'er a mind! 

A dealliloss thing. — They know not \v)iat they do 

Or what they deal with.' Man perchance may bind 

Tlie Flower his steps have bruised; or light anew 

The torch ho quenches, or to music wind 

Again the lyre-.string, from his touch that flew. 

But for the soul! O tremble and beware 

To lay rude hands uiion God's mysteries there. 

The o])ject of these enactments is to keep the colored 
race ignorant of their condition that they may be retained 
the more quietly in bondage. But the plan for this object 
is utterly vain. As well might they attempt to build up 
walls to the heavens, to shut out the light of the sun. 
No precaution can cause the slave to forget that he is a 
slave. No ignorance, hovvcver abject, can eradicate from 
his bosom the indelible stamp of nature, whereby she 
has decreed man free. No rigors of legislation can 
suppress the deep and earnest yearnings of his heart 
after freedom. 

Such are a few specimens of the laws for the government 
of the colored race. I have not alluded to them for the 
purpose of awakening a feeling of reproach towards our 
sister states of the south. God forbid that I should do this. 
Those unfortunate states deserve not your reproach ; 
much more do they deserve your sympathies, your 
prayers and tears. For many are the christians and 
patriots there, who are at this moment mourning over 
the circumstances which make such rigorous measures 
necessary for the safety of themselves and families. 
The very existence of such laws, is a demonstration 
of the proposition with which we commenced these 
remarks, viz. that the slaves of the scuth are sunk as 
low in ignorance and moral degradation as it is possible 
for human beings to be, in the midst of a civilized and 
christian nation. And this is upon the ve'ry obvious 
principle, that the severity of law must be in proportion 
to the tendency to resist; i. e. in proportion lo the 



17 

degradation and vices of those over whom the law is 
instituted. Hence, if the rigors of the slave laws of the 
slave holding states, be ten-fold greater than those of the 
common law, it only proves the fact that the slaves are 
ten-fold more degraded than the rest of the population. 
III. Their domestic condition. Did time permit, it 
might be interesting to you, to describe the domestic 
habits, manners, usages, and superstitions of the southern 
slaves. We might speak of the habits and treatment of 
those born slaves, in their infancy and childhood, — of 
the kind and quantity of food and the mode of ' giving it 
out' to them ; — of their allotted tasks and treatment in 
the field under the direction of overseers ; their treatment 
when sick ; their African customs still retained and 
transmitted among them ; of their festivals and holidays, 
funerals &c. Did we wish to move your feelings, we 
might speak of their coarse and often scanty fare, of their 
unremitted and unrewarded toil, of their stripes at which 
mercy weeps, of their crowded bazaars of mud and misery, 
of the frequent sundering of families, of the unattended sick 
bed, and the unwept grave. — The rules of management 
adopted by masters are various, in different sections of 
the south and even in the same districts of country. In 
several of the respects here referred to, the treatment 
of slaves is much better than is generally supposed by 
our brethren of the north. Yet there is every where 
seen enough of wrong and outrage, of misery, degradation 
and cruelty, to call forth from the bosom of the beholder 
the confession of the poet. 



" There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart ; 
It does not feel for man ; the natural bond 
Of brotherhood is severed as the flax 
That falls asunder at the touch of fiic. 
Man finds his fellow guilty of a skin 
Kol colored like his own ; and having power 



18 



To enforce tlie wrong tor sucli a worthy cause^ 
Dooini and devotes him as his lawful picy." 



" And worse than all and most to be deplored 
As human nature's broadest, foulest blot, 
Chains him, and tasks him and exacts his sweat 
With stripes tliat mercy, with a bleeding heart. 
Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast. 
Thisn what is man .' — and what man seeing this. 
And having human feelings, does not blusli 
And hang his head, to tliink himself a man. 
I would not have a slave to till my ground, 
To carry me, \o fan me while I sleep 
And tremble when I wake, for all tlie wealth 
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned. 
No ; dear as freedom is, and in my heart's 
Just estimation, prized above all price ; 
I had much rather be myself the slave 
And wear the bonds than fasten them on him." 



Such is the moral, legal and domestic condition oi 
one sixth part of our population ; degraded, abandoned 
to heathenism in a christian country ; doomed, under 
the form of law, to the grossest ignorance that ever 
darkened the human mind, and oppressed with a bondage 
more rigorous and hopeless than ever attended slavery in 
any other form. Interested men may disguise the fact, 
but slavery, though disguised, is slavery still. Degraded 
they must be in this condition : For ' the day that 
deprives man of his liberty, robs him of one half his 
manly virtue.' 

The condition of our free colored people is in fact but 
very little better. Of these, we have in the United States 
more than 300,000 whom ice call freemen, whom the law 
calls freemen, but whom we treat as aliens. We treat 
them as citizens in nothing. We place no dependence 
on them for the defence of the country. They cannot 
be elected to civil offices of any kind. They cannot 
hold charters and privileges as a pubhc body. And there 
are a hundred other privileges and immunities, common to 
white citizens,from which they are excluded by law. They 



19 

must be forever shut out from the bar, the bench and the 
medical profession, by the inexorable force of prejudice. 
All hope of amalgamation with the rest of the community- 
is cut off by the same reason. In this respect, their 
situation is peculiar. Among the Greeks and Romans, 
their slaves were of the same color with themselves, and, 
on being emancipated, might, in one or tw o generations, 
amalgamate with the rest of the community. Against 
such a result in this country there is an insuperable 
barrier. — The scheme of colonization is the only one 
which can deliver our colored population from their 
degradation and misery, and place them where they 
can be really free and happy. 

Such are the evils growing out of African slavery, to 
the colored people themselves ; evils, which the plan of 
colonization proposes to remove. But there are other 
evils growing out of this system which are sorely felt by 
the United States. 

Of these, in the second part of this discourse, I propose 
to take a brief review. And 

1. Slavery is now acknowledged by our ablest 
politicians to be a heavy curse to the whole country ; 
and especially so to the south. It is ruinous to the 
whites ; it retards improvement ; roots out an industrious 
population ; banishes the yeomanry of the country ; 
destroys all incentives to enterprise, and is followed 
by many decidedly immoral influences. — Independent 
of its dangers, it is now, in the south, the greatest 
obstacle to the advancement of society. The prosperity 
and advancement of a state must ever be estimated 
by its increase of inhabitants, industry and wealth. 
Guided by this standard, we see at once that the 
largest and oldest of the slave holding states are 
already left far in the rear of their younger sisters. 



20 

Take the State of Virginia for an example. The 
valuation of the lands in the State of New York, now 
exceeds the value of all the lands together with all the 
slaves in Virginia, the largest and oldest state in the 
union. Virginia is scarcely increasing her inhabitants at 
all. Of the vast tide of emigration, which is yearly 
rolling like a flood to the west, scarcely a trickling rill 
finds its way into the ' Old Dominion.' Of the multitudes 
of foreigners daily seeking a home in this empire of 
liberty, how many turn their steps towards this region 
of the slave ? Not one ! There is a malaria in the 
atmosphere of a dense colored population, which they 
shun as they would the cholera or the deadly atmosphere 
of the Upas tree. It is a truth, that some of the'iairest 
portions of that once illustrious state, are going to ruin, 
and slavery is acknowledged to be the cause. The 
traveller is often astonished at the wide spreading 
desolation which he meets with there ; — the deserted 
villages and mansions ; immense fields left without 
culture, extensive forests, which if cleared and cultivated 
by voluntary industry, would support millions ; — forests 
to which the wolf, that was driven back by the approach 
of man, at the first settlement of the state, is now 
actually returning, after the lapse of a hundred years, to 
howl over the desolations of slavery.* 

2. The dangers arising trom the rapid increase of a caste 
in our nation are not to be overlooked. These dangers 
are yearly augmenting by the natural horror of slavery 
and the strong feehng of hostihty to the whites, which 

• Ifthe picture of the desolations of slavery'here drawn,shoulilbe thought by any to be exaggerated, 
it is but justice to remark that the figure of the returning wolf is not a mere imagination of the 
author of the discourse. He recollects having seen the fact asserted, or an expression to the 
•ame effect, in the speech of a southern gentleman before the American Colonization Society at 
Washington. The quotation is made from memory, and the author of this discourse is unable 
to decide whether he is indebted for it, to George W. Custis Esq. of Washington, or to the Hon. 
Mr Mercer of Virginia. 



21 

exist in the breasts of the slaves ; by the discussions in 
our public journals, and by the inflammatory publications 
which are clandestinely spread, in spite of all efforts to 
suppress them. The tragic scenes of St Domingo and 
the more recent horrors of the Southampton massacre, 
have opened the eyes of the nation. These dangers 
are fearfully felt in those states where the blacks are the 
majority and have the physical strength, as is the case in 
South Carolina, Louisiana and eastern Virginia. What 
a state of society is that to dwell in where the master, 
as he rises in the morning to open his doors for admitting 
his domestics, fmds it necessary to go armed with a pistol, 
not knowing whether he is to meet a friend or deadly 
enemy in the person of his servant 1 Yet such is the 
feeling when dark rumors and suspicions of insurrection 
are abroad. There is a trembling apprehension which 
agitates the bosoms of our southern brethren and tells 
them that they are not safe in their own homes. Some 
may shut their eyes against the light and cry peace and 
safety, but the ghosts of the Southampton tragedy will rise 
up in long array before them and tell them there is 
danger. — These dangers are felt and deeply felt by the 
stoutest hearts. — During the recent massacre in Virginia, 
it was the fortune of the speaker (if he may be permitted 
to allude to a private incident) to be near the scene of 
action, in a neighboring city of 14,000 inhabitants, nearly 
one half of which were blacks. It was rumored that on 
a certain night the scenes acted in Southampton were 
to be attempted in that city. Many thought the rumor 
was groundless : But still such was its power over the 
fears of the people, that the Governor of the Estate 
assembled his council, called out and armed a regiment 
of 1000 men, to protect the city against what might 
happen on that anxiously expected night. And not- 



22 

withstanding even this precaution, that was a night of 
gloom and ten*or to many hearts — to many widowed and 
defenceless families. Many were the eyes on that and 
several successive nights, forsaken of their wonted 
slumbers. Every sound that fell upon the ear seemed 
to be the harbinger of death. At the distant barking of 
the dog ; at the sound of a human accent in the street, or 
of a footstep upon the pavement, or of the rusding of a 
leaf upon the window, the fond mother pressed her babe 
more closely to her bosom, not knowing but it would be 
the last embrace this side of eternity ! And this was 
the feeling which prevailed not for a day or a week, but 
for months. This is the feeling which is every year 
awakened by floating rumors of conspiracy and massacre. 
The dangers from this source are accumulating. In 
South Carolina, while the whites have scarcely doubled 
their numbers during the last forty years, the blacks 
have nearly trebled theirs. In the five original slave 
states, (Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South 
Carolina and Georgia,) the whites, in forty years, 
have increased only eighty per. cent, while the slaves 
have increased 112 per. cent. — According to calculations 
made by a late secretary of state, the blacks among us 
double their number in about twenty five years ; the 
whites only once in twenty eight years. — In twenty five 
years the slaves will be four millions ; in fifty years eight 
millions, in one hundred years thirty two millions. And 
what will this fair republic be worth Avith thirty millions 
of ahens and enemies in her bosom ? Colonization will 
then be out of the question ! As well may you think 
to move the world ! And will these thirty millions, 
gathered as they then will be in the south, still submit 
in quietness to the yoke of bondage? Let St Domingo 
answer. Let the more recent horrors of Southampton 



23 

answer ! Let the page of history answer ! No ; it is 
impossible. They will be free : And if they are not 
freed before by christian kindness, they will rise in the 
consciousness of their might, and shake the yoke from 
their necks as the lion shakes the dew-drop from his 
mane ; they will wrest the rod from the master's grasp, 
and the children of this generation may yet walk in 
chains amidst the sepulchres of their fathers ! Here 
then is the evil with its fast accumulating dangers. It 
is already so appalling in its aspect that very few dare to 
look it in the face. But is it wise to hug a serpent in 
our bosoms until we begin to feel the piercing of its 
fangs ? This evil is now^ in our power. And shall it 
not be removed 1 

Such are some of the evils, the degradation, the 
cruelties, dangers and blighting political influences arising 
from the introduction of a colored population into the 
United States. — For these evils, the plan of colonization 
offers an efTectual remedy. The objects which the 
Colonization Society aims to accomplish, are. 

First. To rescue the free colored population of this 
country, ft'om the degradation and proscription to Vv hich 
they are here exposed, and place them where they can be 
free and happy, under the influence of the great moral 
motives which form the characters of other men. 

Secondly. To free this country from the unnumbered 
evils of a colored population, and thus avert the danger 
of a dreadful collision between two castes which must 
inevitably be objects of mutual jealousy to each other. 

Thirdly. To spread civilization and Christianity through 
the 100,000,000 who now people the continent of Africa. 

And fourthly. To put a stop to the nefarious 
tratiic of the slave trade. That it is competent to the 
accomplishment of these great objects, under the blessing 



24 

of God, is proved bj the success of its infant efforts. 
The scheme of the American Colonization Society, is 
a noble conception. It is a stupendous plan, encircling 
in its wide embrace, a nation of degraded men, and a 
continent of heathen. It aims not merely at benefiting 
this country and the colored population of this country. 
In addition to this, it is a foreign missionary society. 
It is such to the churches of this land ; it is such in its 
effects on Africa. It is in this light that the christian 
ought to contemplate and patronize it. Every emigrant 
of good moral character, which the Society sends to 
Liberia, is a missionary. He carries with him credentials 
in the sacred cause of liberty and free institutions, and 
exerts a redeeming influence on all with whom he comes 
in contact. If he be truly pious, he goes forth as a 
missionary possessing advantages for evangelizing the 
native tribes which no white missionary can possess. He 
teaches by example as well as by precept. Similarity 
of color and original cast of character, gives him a ready 
access and a powerful influence over the native tribes. 
The reason of the litde success of many of our efforts 
to evangelize heathens, is doubdess, that we ^ have 
attempted to christianize before civilizing them. This 
work has been forced and unnatural, and has proved 
abortive in many cases, as among the aborigines of this 
country. But in Africa, we pursue the natural oixler of 
things. Our emigrants and agents go forth with the 
bible in one hand and the plough in the other. Both 
parts of the work move on together. Our litde colony 
there, though planted only ten years ago, and still in its 
infancy, has already commenced the work as a band of 
foreign missionaries. And for proof of this, look at its 
present condition. — It now consists of about 3000 souls, 
2000 of which were sent from this country ; the other 



25 

thousand are re-captured Africans. These 3000 citizens 
occupy the extensive, healthful and fertile territory of 
Liberia, on the western coast of Africa, and constitute 
an independent, republican and christian nation, in that 
benighted land. They are settled chiefly in the three 
villages of Monrovia, Caldwell and Millsburg. They 
have three churches. The ordinances of religion are 
regularly observed, and its precepts as well obeyed as 
among ourselves. Sabbath schools are established and 
well attended. Six permanent common schools, besides 
some smaller ones, are in successful operation. Nearly 
100 children from the native tribes are now training in 
these schools, who will soon go forth to their respective 
homes and scatter the light of civilization, religion and 
free institutions wherever they go. Several of the native 
tribes have repeatedly expressed their desire to receive 
religious instruction from the colonists. One of these has 
a population of 125,000. Three tribes, with their kings, 
have put themselves under the protection of the colony, 
and several others have desired the same privilege. 
* They wish,' they say, ' to become Americans.' — 
A news paper, ably conducted by a colored man, a 
graduate at one of our colleges, has been established ; 
and we see in its various notices of elections, public 
roads, military force, commercial transactions &c., all 
the marks of a well established and prosperous little 
state. All this has been accomplished since 1822, amidst 
much prejudice and opposition at home, and many 
obstacles abroad, which must ever be met in setthng a 
new colony. We can already see the lessons of wisdom, 
liberty, religion and social order, speaking out to the 
pagans of Africa, in the actions of 3000 living men : 
Arid we can well conceive how, in a short time, 
ignorance, superstition and civil darkness will flee away 
4 



26 

from a land into which the knowledge and practice of 
such institutions shall be transplanted. Now, if such 
be the progress and such the good influence of this litde 
state while in its infancy, on the surrounding tribes, 
what may w^e not expect from its vigorous manhood 7 
The colony live under a free government of their own. 
Their laws originate with themselves and rise naturally 
out of their circumstances. Some of their late enactments 
show that they understand the true principles of 
legislation. They have adopted the sound policy of 
taxing heavily the vices of the community for the support 
of its virtues. For a license to sell ardent spirits, {^300 
is exacted by the Liberian code, and the money thus 
raised goes into their common school fund. — Our naval 
officers bear the most ample testimony to the good order, 
good habits and morals of the colony. The colonists 
themselves, in a recent address to the free colored 
people of the United States, hold the following language. 
' Our soil is not exceeded for fertihty or productiveness 
by any soil in the world. The productions of the soil 
go on through the year without intermission. We have 
no dreary winter here for one half of the year to consume 
the productions of the other half. Nature is constandy 
renovating herself and pouring her treasures all the year 
round into the lap of the industrious. — Our houses and 
circumstances are perfectly comfortable. — 'The climate 
of Africa,' say they, ' is not understood in other countries. 
Its inhabitants are as robust, as healthy and as long 
lived, to say the least, as those of any other country ; 
and for the last four years not one person in fifty from 
the middle and southern states has died from the change of 
chmate.' — The climate of Africa is decidedly salubrious 
and healthy to all native Africans, and the children of our 
colonists, it should be remembered, will all be natives. 



27 

The successes and unparalleled prosperity of the 
colony at Liberia, have forever silenced all opposers to 
the scheme of colonization, and fully demonstrated its 
practicability. The principal obstacle now in the way, 
is found in the fact that it will not do to increase the 
numerical and physical strength of the settlement faster 
than we doits intelligence and moral power. If thousands 
of new emigrants without education, without religious 
principles, and without those habits wdiich are the result 
of voluntary industry, should be at once united to the 
estabhshment, it might become ungovernable. This 
obstacle to our plan may be successfully avoided by 
multiplying the establishments. As soon as the means 
can be furnished, colonies may be planted at a hundred 
different stations, from each of which we may expect the 
same results as have already flow^ed from that of Liberia. 
Thus, in four or five years time, the capacity of the 
scheme will be sufficiently increased to receive yearly 
the wdiole annual increase of our colored population. 
This is estimated at 60,000. The cost of transportation 
is ^25 for each emigrant. The expense of transporting 
the whole annual increase would be ^1,500,000. This 
appears to be a great sum ; but it is really small w^hen 
compared with the good to be produced by' it. It is less 
than 12J cents to each citizen of the United- States.-The 
amount annually expended in the New England States for 
ardent spirits, which does nobody any good, but spreads 
disease and death, bankruptcy and ruin, for both worlds, 
is more than sufficient to remove the whole annual 
increase of our colored population. — We have in the 
United States 2,000,000 of slaves. Estimating their 
present value at $150 each, they are w^orth 120 milhons 
of dollars. The whole expense of their freedom and 
removal to Africa would be 170 millions. — The amount 



28 

expended in this country for ardent spirits (being 
^30,000,000, annually) would, in six years time, unclench 
the fetters of eveiy slave in the land, and comfortably 
settle him in the land of his fathers. 

The expense of our plan is no longer an objection. A 
tenth part of our surplus revenue would accomphsh the 
whole object. — It is estimated that 80,000 slaves were 
torn from their home and country and brought into the 
two ports of Havanna, and Rio de Jeneiro, in 1828. If 
the wretches engaged in the nefarious slave trade, could, 
find means to transport 80,000 human beings across 
the atlantic, in a year; surely this powerful nation, to 
rescue itself Irom the stain of slavery, and for spreading 
the unfettered enjoyment of liberty, religion and human 
happiness over the two great continents of America and 
Africa, can accomphsh the conveyance of 60,000, or 
even 100,000, to a land where they will be lords of the 
soil. The immediate object of the American Colonization 
Society, is to do good to the free colored people of this 
country. It offers to remove to the land of their fathers 
all who are willing to go. No one is required to go 
against his will. There are always enough ready to 
embrace the privilege. At this moment, there are more 
than 3000, who have taken a Pisgah view of this 
promised land, and are anxiously waiting for the means 
to help them across the Atlantic. — Will you help them 
to go to this land of promise ? 

But we solicit your patronage for the plan of African 
Colonization as a powerful auxiliary in the cause of 
foreign missions. The American Colonization Society, 
though instituted primarily for another purpose, is, by 
its natural operation, a foreign Missionary Society. It 
is such to the churches of this country. It is such to 
Africa. And is it not needed for this purpose 1 Let 



29 

us look at facts and let them answer. The American 
churches, since 1810, have expended a million and a 
half of dollars, in establishing missions on the continent 
of Asia and the islands of the sea. But they have not 
planted a single pennanent mission on the African 
continent. It is well known that all our missionary 
operations have been directed to Asia and the Polynesian 
Islands. All eyes have been turned to these corners 
of the earth and waiting for the salvation of the Lord. 
A..d may that salvation come : yea, let it speedily and 
abundantly come. — But still we ask, why have the 
100 millions of poor benighted Africans been entirely 
overlooked in distributing the alms of our American 
churches ? Is it because their souls are not as precious ? 

•; Is it because they are not as needy ? Must we not 
meet them also before the bar of God, as well as the 
Bramin, the Indian, or the Laplander 1 Is it because 
we ow^e to Africa, no debt of gratitude, no return of 

\ sympathy ; after we, as a nation, and a chrisdan nation 
too, have borne so large a part in tearing away, and 
brutalizing her children, and are now holding two millions 

• of them in hopeless bondage ? — Surely, if there is a land 
on earth, that has claims on our prayers and charities, 
that land is Africa ! For us as a nation, her country 
has been made desolate, her fields laid waste, her 
villages plundered and burnt ; and her children torn 
away, brutalized, and doomed to pitiless bondage. — 
If there is a single enterprise of this age, combining all 
the motives that can move the heart of a man and a 
christian, it is this which looks to the redemption of 
Africa, and the well being of the poor African. Justice 
and mercy, obligation and interest, the voice of humanity 
within us, and the voice of eternal justice from the 
heavens, the groans and tears of 2,000,000 of enslaved 



30 

men in our own land, and the claims of 100 millions in 
Africa, for whom Christ died ; all speak to us in a 
language which cannot be disregarded without guilt. 
To us then as christians, the appeal comes home ; are 
we not called upon to aid in this cause of hght, and 
liberty, and human happiness ? 

Shall we, whose souls are lighted 

VVitli wisdom from on high ; 
Shall we to men benighted, 

The lamp of life deny ? 

When, when will christian charity aw^ake to the full 
importance of this subject? Let American christians and 
American citizens, discharge the debt they owe her ; and 
soon shall we see Africa, ' long distressed and afflicted 
Africa ; delivered from her miseries, her chains knocked 
off, her spirit emancipated, rising up in strength and 
beauty, like a new born angel from the night of chaos,' 
stretching out her hands to God in praise, and invoking 
ceaseless blessings upon America, as the means and 
instrument of her redemption. 

Bear this subject with you to the throne of grace. Let 
it occupy your thoughts in the intervals of business. 
When you sit down in the family circle, among those 
with whom you mingle in the sweet communion of life, 
to share the blessings of freedom and plenty, which a 
bountiful God has bestowed upon you, think of two 
millions of human beings, in these free. United States, 
who are cut off from ail these blessings. And in the 
disposition of your property, let not the claims of Africa 
be forgotten. Remember that in patronizing the cause 
we plead to night, you are aiding to rescue our free 
colored population, from degradation and proscription ;- 
to remove the dangers of a dreadful collision between 
two castes, which may, at a future day, bathe the fairest 
portion of our land in blood ; — you are aiding to arrest 



31 

the nefarious traffic of the slave trade, which is still 
carried on, except on the Liberian coast ; and last, though 
not least, you are aiding to spread civiUzation and 
relit^ion over one of the largest and most fertile continents 
of the globe. These, under the blessing of God, are the 
promised, the assured, and not very distant results of 
the scheme of colonization. Yes, it will achieve the 
intellectual and moral emancipation of Africa, through 
the instrumentality of our emigrants and colonies. Our 
own happy country, but two centuries ago, was as wild 
and savage as Ediiopia now is. It has now become 
an independent, happy, christian nation. It has grown 
to its present prosperity and power, from christian 
colonies like those we are now planting on the shores of 
Africa. Our anticipations are not too large. The 
vision is before us and it is sure. Yes, it is sure : The 
promise ot the Omnipotent secures it. Princes shall 
come out of Egypt ; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her 
hands unto God. 

It is indeed refreshing to the soul to look down the 
vale of years to come, and enjoy in anticipation, the 
results of the efforts which this century will make for 
the redemption of long oppressed Africa. Often, when 
contemplating this theme, does my fancy steal away 
from the apathy and the cad realities of the past, and 
convey herself onward, a hundred years, in the march 
of time, to visit this regenerated continent of the slave, 
as it will then appear to an admiring world. And do 
you ask, what do I see in this pleasing vision of the 
future ? — I see those moral lights, which our labors are 
i kindling there, brightening, and spreading through those 
dark habitations of cruelty. — I see one tribe after another 
coming to the light of Zion, and to the brightness of her 
rising. — I see Ethiopia awaking from her sleep, looking 



32 

forth upon the light, and stretching out her hands to 
God in praise. — I see long benighted and abused Africa 
regenerated and peopled by two hundred millions of 
christianized men. I see the dark and unbroken forests 
which now stretch over the most fertile continent of the 
globe, converted into rich plantations, crowned with two 
abundant harvests in the year, as the reward of voluntary 
industry. I see towns and cities rising up in peace 
and beauty, along her ' ancient rivers' ; quiet cottages, 
and thriving villages scattered over her ' palmy plains'; 
churches and schools every where rising into being, 
dispelling the long night of darkness and superstition, 
and diffusing their mild influence through those regions 
which are now the habitations of cruelty. On the plains 
of the pyramids, I see the relics of those enduring 
monuments of pride and superstition, converted into 
temples of the hving God, and institutions of learning to 
bless the land with all that is rich in human science. I 
see the Muse of poetry and eloquence awaking from 
her sleep of ages, shaking her slumbers from her brow, 
and preparing her lyre for strains as sweet as ever 
flowed from the corded shell of Terrence, her ancient 
bard. I hear the familiar accents of my mother tongue 
in aU her borders. I see the star spangled banner of my 
country, waving in all her ports : And, instead of the yell 
of despair wrung from the agonized heart of the pirate's 
victim, I hear the song of praise and the voice of 
christian worship ascending from the lips of two hundred 
millions of enlightened, christianized and happy freemen. 



i.Fua'!2 



-^ 



